I achieved a sun-burned nose, a crick in my back and about half as much cotton as the average ten-year-old picker. I donned a sunbonnet, pulled a nine-foot sack and picked cotton with the children. Lenski admitted that she knew nothing about growing cotton, but she accepted the invitation to visit Mississippi County and learn, saying: “I entered another world. Yarbro students had written to Lenski asking her to write a book about them after hearing a broadcast of her reading from an earlier book-the 1946 Newbery Medal–winning Strawberry Girl, a book about growing strawberries in Florida-and reading the book themselves. Lenski’s depiction of the family and its experiences reflected observations gained when she visited Yarbro School near Blytheville (Mississippi County) in 1947. Chapter titles indicate the key element in the chapter, such as “School,” “Saturday in Town,” “A Merry Christmas,” “The Library Book,” “The Bridge,” and “A New Year.” Other family members include Joanda’s father and mother, along with Joanda’s siblings: brother Ricky and baby sister Lolly. Each chapter represents a narrative episode involving the family as related from the viewpoint of Joanda, the oldest child. Though no years are mentioned, the book seems to be set in the late 1940s. It tells the story of a sharecropping family in eastern Arkansas that grows cotton. Cotton in My Sack is a juvenile novel published in 1949, written and illustrated by popular children’s author Lois Lenski.
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